ESU Chemistry club streams ACS webinar

On January 30, 2014, East Stroudsburg University’s Chemistry Club streamed a webinar from the Lehigh Valley Section of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

This webinar allowed the ESU Chemistry Club to watch a presentation on the ACS’s all new social networking site, the ACS Network.

“Social networking is used more and more in business settings,” said Christopher McCarthy, one of the presenters of the webinar.

McCarthy believes that social networking sites ease the process of working together by overcoming time and geography barriers.

Christine Brennan-Schmidt, McCarthy’s co-presenter, stressed the idea that the ACS Network is a hybrid platform for networking and collaboration, and it “promotes discussions, networking, collaborations, and events planning.”

Sites such as Facebook, Twitter or the ACS Network own all content posted to them, but the ACS Network makes a commitment not to use the information posted there for its own benefit.

Dr. John Freeman, an ESU chemistry professor and advisor to the ESU Chemistry Club, stated, “ACS owns it but they will not use it.”

Even a professional site such as LinkedIn can miss some of the more important aspects of certain types of professional work.

As stated by Christine Brennan-Schmidt, “It is licensed for the chemical community and functionality is being developed with the chemical community in mind.”

Rebekah Elmuza, an ESU chemistry major who was present at the webinar, said, “It will be better for us in the sciences, as opposed to LinkedIn.”

The ACS Network also offers unique opportunities to chemistry students that can be missed by other sites.

Dr. Freeman stated that this site is “relevant to students because it provides opportunity to interact with people who don’t know you who may want to employ you.”

Kevin Bunting, another student present at the conference last Thursday, expressed, “For chemistry, it will be really useful. It is really a good idea to gear it toward the students.”

“Social media works best by using multiple channels to reach out to your audience,” said Christopher McCarthy.

McCarthy continued, “Different tools make sense for different content. Think about your audience, your content, and your desired result [when choosing a social media].”

ACS membership is not required to sign up for this service, and it can be found by going to communities.acs.org

If additional help is needed, Christopher McCarthy and Christine Brennan-Schmidt can be reached at c_mccarthy@ACS.org and c_mccarthy.org, respectively.